Acute Hearing and Peripheral Vision
by Facemash
Summary: Sheldon's violent childhood.


"_Hello, Penny,"_

"_Sheldon, do you have eyes in the back of your head?"_

"_When one is beaten up every other day at school, one develops acute hearing out of necessity,"_

* * *

><p>"<em>Why would she cry?"<em>

"_Because she's losing her son,"_

"_But he's going to a better place where he won't get beat up…so much…"_

He never hit his siblings, but they hit him, although it was more of a playful and teasing thing. His sister was very physical, in contrast to Sheldon's aversion to being touched. It was partly his fear of germs and partly his aversion to physical contact. His older brother would go too far sometimes, and then his father would get involved, yelling at George Jr. to leave him alone, and George Jr. would skulk off to his room, promising to get him later when they were beyond the watchful eye of their father. It was at school where the real beatings took place.

It had started with taunts and teasing, the other kids rankled by his indecipherable way of speaking and his weird clothes. Sheldon barely noticed this. Being chased and caught and held down and punched, he noticed this. Sticks and dirt in his hair, the dirt getting on his clothes, his wrists held against the ground by strong hands, the threats and the taunts meaning something more to him when they were accompanied by blows to his stomach and punches to his head.

He would get up and brush himself off, not aware that his own odd behavior contributed to his treatment at school. He was unaware of how many bullies his sister Missy would go after on her own, kicking them in the balls for every punch they landed on him.

School had become a dangerous place, and every unstructured time in the day was a potential time of violence. Sheldon was tall but skinny and uncoordinated, unable to defend himself against even one kid but they ganged up on him, two kids holding his arms behind his back and a third kicking and punching him, asking him how smart he thought he was now.

Concepts that most adults couldn't fathom were coming easily to him, and he could see things in a way that most people couldn't. Most people period, not just kids. He remembered everything and could connect things in startling and almost revolutionary ways. It annoyed his father, who wanted a normal football playing son, and it frightened his mother, who took the calls from the school as badly as though he were getting in trouble.

"Mrs. Cooper," the calls would begin with an almost baffled sounding teacher or guidance counselor, "Sheldon seems to be quite a bit advanced academically. He has obtained a perfect score on every test, and the state tests show that he is functioning beyond the college level. In the paper that the science teacher assigned, he wrote about theoretical applications and used formulas to back up his conclusions, and the teacher said it was more advanced than any paper he had ever seen, it was almost like a college dissertation,"

Mary held the phone loosely to her ear, unable to process what was being said to her.

"What do you mean? Is he in trouble?"

"No, Mrs. Cooper, he's, he's too advanced for grammar school, and probably middle school and high school. He's ten years old and he should be in college. In math class he never does the work out on the paper like the other kids, he does it all in his head, and he's always right. You should get him tested, he might be a genius,"

Mary licked her lips and looked up at the ceiling. A genius. She glanced into the living room where he was playing Nintendo. Gently she put the phone in the cradle and went into the living room on rubbery legs. She looked at her youngest son, his large blue eyes trained on the T.V., and she looked at the game. The game didn't mean much to her, it was some game that had levels and points and lots of noises, but she saw that he was on level 172 and the figure on the game was moving as fast as a blur, and he dodged all the video game hazards effortlessly and the points kept climbing in the corner of the screen. Genius.


End file.
